Tip of the Iceberg
by Poisoned Scarlet
Summary: Because jizz has a weird tendency to get on things that aren't even supposed to be in range, much less trajectory. But that was the least of their problems.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Soul Eater nor the lyrics to This is What Makes Us Girls by Lana Del Rey.

**Tip of the Iceberg  
>by. <strong>_Poisoned Scarlett_

* * *

><p>"<em>We don't look for heaven and we put our love first<br>Don't you know we'd die for it? It's a curse."_

* * *

><p>This is going to end in disaster if he doesn't do something <em>now<em>.

He knows it even before she sends that current of energy through their link. He has known it since they were called out of their classroom earlier that day. Sid asked them for another Witch Hunter demonstration in the EAT class and who is Maka to deny him the request? Her pride doesn't let her admit that their resonation has been flickering for the past few months. She will never admit that they may not even be able to execute a _decent_ Soul Resonance although it's not like the EAT class would know the difference.

They still stare in awe as Maka is bathed in white light, the ground vibrating with the effort of their resonance. Sid is the only one whose eyes narrow as Witch Hunter weakly flickers to life. The EAT class is astonished and Soul can barely hear their hushed whispers over the sound of his own mental shouts. Maka is forcing herself too much; this isn't how you're supposed to resonate! He's alarmed, scared for her. If she continues like this, she'll strain her soul, and that can be deadly, she has to stop! So Soul does what he does each time he feels Maka reach the brink: he cuts their connection, and Witch Hunter disappears in a swallow of air and light.

"_What're you doing?" _Soul hisses for only her to hear, furiously.

Maka barely hears him.

"That was…" Sid clears his throat.

"AWESOME!" someone finishes for him, enthusiastically.

"YEAH, THAT WAS AWESOME! I WANNA' DO THAT, TOO!" another adds with equal vigor.

_Of course_ they can't tell the difference between a real Soul Resonance and this broke down imitation. Soul transforms into flesh and bone and kneels for longer than is necessary, struggling to compose his quickly crumbling facade. Maka pants beside him, not daring to look at him when he looks at her. Sid manages to cover up their screw-up by distracting the class and ushering them out to lunch soon afterwards. But the look in his eye tells them that he'll be speaking to them when he has the time.

Soul wants to leave as quickly as possible; he doesn't want to have this certain problem flung in his face so soon.

"Maka…"

"Not now, Soul," Maka replies, briskly. She swallows and looks anywhere but at him. Soul can feel it in his gut; that sick, flat, crash of hope. "We'll talk about this later. Stein said I had to present my project to the evening adult class so I have to prep for that. I'll – see you later, okay?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"What..?"

"After that – after _forcing_ resonance, you're just going to ignore it?" At her calm face, Soul feels like he should grab her shoulders and shake sense into her. "Maka, you can't just ignore it! We have a problem – we _can't_ resonate!"

"Don't be ridiculous! We _can _resonate_—!_"

"I'm not being ridiculous! When was the last time we tried Witch Hunter?" Soul challenges, relishing the uncertainty that flashes in her eyes.

"There's nothing –_nothing_ wrong with us. We'll just have to work harder at it, that's all, we're just out of practice! I'll take care of it!" Maka stubbornly insists and before he can reply, she says: "I really have to go! I'm late! We'll talk about this later!"

"…Yeah. Sure. _Whatever_," he bites back.

She hesitates and finally looks at him. But before he can look back, she's turned away and walked right out of his reach.

He doesn't know what he's doing wrong. If he can somehow remedy this – whatever they're going through right now, whatever is preventing him from properly connecting with his meister – he'd do it in a heartbeat. He doesn't like how uneasy it makes him because he knows very well that a partnership where the weapon and meister no longer resonate adequately cannot end well. He and Maka have been having problems for the past few months now, problems they've never had to deal with before when they were kids. Their arguing has reached boiling points and their avoidance of each other when it all blows over is starting to become very obvious.

The sudden swell of partnership letters in his locker prove this. The fact that more girls – and guys – are becoming more bold in their requests to become his meister reflect this, too. He can't make it anymore clear that his loyalty for Maka is stronger than iron but his words always go in one ear and out the other. This irritates him; piling on with the numerous other reasons why this year in his life sucks the most out of all of them so far. He wants to go back to the easy days, where he and Maka were still collecting 99 souls. But wishing has never got him anywhere so he seals these thoughts deeply within himself and faces the cold, hard, facts.

That's worse but it's reality and he's never been much of a dreamer.

"Ah, Soul! Good, you're still here! I wanted to talk to you about what happened in there today…" Sid says, dragging Soul from his broody thoughts. This is just what he needs: a lecture from the dead guy. "What happened? You and Maka have always been the best at Soul Resonance! What happened in there… it's concerning, and worrying over the progress of my students was the type of man I used to be!"

Soul scratches the back of his head and shrugs, not meeting his eyes. "Beats me. She's probably on her rag or something."

Sid frowns. "That shouldn't be a reason for why your Soul Resonance fell below-average today."

"It is for us," Soul forces on a grin when he looks up. If there's one thing he's good at, it's pretending everything is fine. He's been able to dodge past Kid and Liz by doing this. It isn't going to fail him this time either because, as Sid's shoulders lose their tension and his smile widens, he knows he's won this round already.

"Well, as long as everything is fine between you two! The last thing we need is Shibusen's strongest pair not being able to resonate at all!" Sid laughs. "That would be catastrophic! Especially now that you're a Deathscythe."

"Why would me being a Deathscythe change anything?" Soul asks but he doesn't want to know the answer. He feels sick, like he's drunk a carton of curdled milk. He can sense the despairing news before it hits like a hurricane before it demolishes a city. Those rough winds, heavy rain, flapping shingles, cracking glass – all signs; he can see all the signs on Sid's face as he says:

"Well, then that means they'll have to assign you a new meister!"

"They can't do that."

"_Yes_, we can," Sid raises a brow at his hostile tone. "Lord Death holds the right to assign a new meister/weapon to any student whose partnership has dissolved. Now that you're a Deathscythe, we can't afford to have you try and work out something between you and your meister. You need to be trained and if your current meister cannot train you," Sid shrugs, "we'll find someone who _can_."

Over his cold, mutilated, dead body they'll find someone who can.

He isn't going to relinquish his hold on his meister, even if she doesn't hold his hand anymore and she hasn't looked him in the eye since he can't remember when. Because a future without her is inconceivable; he can't quite imagine a reality without her by his side, looking up at him with that bright smile on her face crinkling the corners of her beautiful eyes.

"_Ohhh, look here! The poor little weapon wants to cry, doesn't he?"_

His blood thunders in his ears.

"_Because his owner doesn't want him anymore, boo-hoo! She doesn't need him anymore, not when she's a three-star and she can find a better weapon to satisfy her! How does it feel to be thrown away like this, Soul? Does it hurt?"_

The nerve in his jaw jumps, his breaths come out heavy. Sid creases a brow at his students lack of reaction, the worrying blank glaze in his eyes, and waves a hand in front of his face. There's no reaction: Soul merely stares ahead listlessly.

"_I bet it hurts. I bet my best bottle of wine it hurts,_" the voice grins, grins so wide you can hear it in its words. "_Because I can feel it, too, Soul. I can feel your hurt. You confusion, your anger. And you're right to be angry. After all you've done for her? After all you've __devoted__ to her, all those songs you wrote for her, all that time __caring__ for her when no one else would? She's just going to __toss__ you away like this? Like you're nothing, like you're a tool, like you're not even worth her time..? What a selfish girl, what a contemptuous little bitch—!"_

"SOUL!" Sid shouts, disturbed by the monstrous twitch of a grin that stretched his students face before he sprinted past him. "SOUL, COME BACK! _SOUL!"_

Sid's calls fall on deaf ears. Soul can quickly feel the insanity that feeds on his blood graze the door that leads to his consciousness; his self. With every biting word the Imp tells him, the harder it is to control his suddenly uncontrollable madness. He's sure, by the amount of restraint it's taking him to keep himself level-headed, that this spike in his black blood is caused by the stress he's been managing all on his own; the upheaval of his emotions. Usually, Maka helps him manage his stress: she sits next to him, gives him a girly pep talk, sometimes offers comfort in forms of hugs or hand-holding or pats to his shoulder, but it helps. God, it _helps_, because sometimes he just can't deal with anything in the way Chrona can't deal with the whole world.

But Maka won't touch him.

Maka won't look at him.

Maka barely speaks to him.

Maka doesn't smile at him.

Maka doesn't laugh with him.

Maka doesn't get angry at him.

Maka doesn't do _anything_: she's just there, she's just taking up space, she feels like she's a couple of state-lines away and, god help him, he can't deal with that. He can't deal with being ignored like this, he can't deal with being pushed away like this, because he has problems. He has issues. He doesn't deny it anymore: he's always been a troubled little boy and then Maka comes along and brightens up his entire landscape and who is he to _not _worship the ground she walks on?

So maybe his fixation with her crosses the border between love and obsession – _"__Maybe__? Don't flatter yourself! You've crossed that line __long__ ago!" – _but he needs Maka like a person needs air to breathe and water to drink and food to eat and if she confesses she doesn't _need _him after all, he doesn't know what he's going to do with himself. What can a person – a person whose devoted his entire being to a single being – do when that being decides to abandon them? Who can a person turn to, what can a person do? There are obvious vices that come to mind – _sexdrugsdrink –_ but none of them would do it for him. That's the worst part: knowing nothing else will fill that vacancy in his heart like Maka can.

"_So what're you going to do, Soul? We've reached rock-bottom!_" The Imp does something he hasn't been able to do for awhile: he dematerializes the reality before him and substitutes it with his own. The forest ground ripples disturbingly before it's replaced with a pressing black that encapsulates him so wholly it's almost hard to breathe. "_She's throwing us away! She already did what she had to do: make us a Deathscythe. Now she doesn't need us!"_

"Maka isn't like that! She wouldn't do that!" Soul snaps, searching around him for anything that resembles a door. "What did you do? You shouldn't be able to do this!" He takes a step back, his shoe sliding against something slimy. Soul drops his gaze and realizes he's wadding through a pool of black blood. "Where am I?"

"_My basement," _the Imp replies, devilishly. _"If you promise to cooperate, I'll take you to a nicer place. Maybe we can talk about this development over some wine! What do you say?"_

"You better get me out of here before I get pissed!" Soul snarls lowly and he flinches when a door appears inches from his nose. He hardens his eyes and grabs the brass knob without further ado. The carved mahogany doors open to reveal the Black Room, checkered red-black tiles replacing the sloppy blood he'd been plunged in. He takes a step inside, his body shuddering when a new set of clothes materialize upon his body. He loosens the black tie on his neck, continuing toward the smirking devil who sits atop the cherry-wood bureau. The phonograph plays a low bass hip-hop beat, not the usual cool jazz he listens to.

"Are you going to play nice?" The Imp asks.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Soul retorts. Nothing is out of place in the Black Room. It's as he remembers it to be yet there's a shift in the air; a change in the temperature. It's colder than he remembers it to be. Soul glances down at the table beside him and finds a flute glass filled with red wine at the ready. He takes the glass, taking a long swig of it.

"Easy now, there's no rush."

Soul sends him a burning look and the Imp resigns.

"You brought this onto yourself, Soul!" The Imp takes the needle and drops it on the record and the smooth jazz Soul likes spills into the room. "Or rather, she did, because there seems to be some sort of…_obstruction_ that is preventing her from fully neutralizing your insanity with her Anti-Magic Wavelength."

"What do you mean by that? I thought her Anti-Magic Wavelength protected me as long as we – well, we can _kind of_ resonate," Soul hedges. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"My god… does _everything_ have to be spelled out for you? Maybe that's why she's leaving you!" the Imp says, scathingly, and relishes the flinch his counterpart expresses at the comment. "She's resisting, Soul—she isn't receptive to our wavelength anymore. For some reason, she's reluctant to allow you to have too much of her soul in your grasp. The reason, I can't say, but if this continues, you two really _won't_ be able to resonate any longer." The Imp takes a drink of his wine, watching Soul struggle with the news. "And you know what happens when you can't resonate any longer? She won't be able to hold you anymore. And then you will be assigned a _new _meister—!"

"The hell I will!" Soul snarls, crushing the glass in his hand. Not even a gash mars the skin of his hand, it's like the shards go right through his palm. "Maka and I will fix this, like we always do. I'll just ask her what's bugging her and we'll—!"

"You think _talking _to her will help? When she can barely look you in the eye, when she barely _speaks _to you anymore?" The Imp roars with laughter. This is why he is able to morph his reality: because Maka is the chink in his armor; his degrading, steadily chafing, armor. "_Sure_. We'll see how that goes. Let me ask you something, Soul!" The Imp adds abruptly, before he can comment. "Have you ever wondered if maybe she…wants someone _fresh?_"

"Fresh? What're you going on about now?" Soul demands, bristling.

"Someone _new, _Soul!" The Imp smiles cruelly. "Someone with more _pizazz!_ Maybe she's tired of the same old _noise_ every single day! Someone older, maybe, a little more _aesthetically pleasing_ than perhaps, say…_you_." Attacking all of his insecurities, the Imp plays him well. Like a finely tuned piano. Soul can't win this round, not when he's so lost and confused like this. "You're not the only one who receives partnership invitations, you know…"

And somehow he makes so much sense it hurts. He leans against the table, searching the floor for answers. The shards of glass on the ground have disappeared and the flute glass is whole and filled with wine again by his side. But he doesn't take the glass; he has too much on his mind. He doesn't want to believe it but the more he thinks about it, the more true it rings. Maka, she really doesn't want him anymore, does she? The distance, the brisk comments, holing herself up in her room after school, barely looking at him, ducking her head whenever he spoke to her – she feels guilty, guilty because she's having second thoughts about their partnership? He doesn't want to believe it, he wants to believe he knows her better than that, but what if he's been reading her all wrong this entire time?

"That's right, Soul!" The Imp coos. "It's the awful truth, she's abandoned us! Quite ironic, isn't it? After all that ruckus about us never leaving her, she goes on and does it herself! She's always been a hypocrite, I don't know why you're so surprised she—!"

"_Whose _a hypocrite?"

Soul snaps his head up, astonished to find Maka pushing away the black curtains roughly as she stumbles into the room. She comes in her black dress, tighter and shorter than he remembers it to be; wrapping around her figure like a glove, the black accenting her emerald eyes. There's more lace than he remembers it had, especially around her chest or has her chest just grown enough for the lace to finally accentuate it? He doesn't have enough time to properly drink her in: she's running towards him, relief shining in her eyes.

"_Soul!_" Maka shouts, breathlessly. "You're okay!"

"Why wouldn't I be?" He coughs, shaking his head of his thoughts.

"Because you're tearing the forest apart!" Maka then shouts, furiously, to his bewilderment. "Why didn't you tell me that you were having trouble managing your insanity? If you had told me then I would have done something about it and you wouldn't be going on a rampage!"

"Oh, yeah, I've been so _busy_ recently that I forgot all about my fucking madness!" Soul sneers, caustically. "Don't play dumb: it's because you won't even _look _at me anymore!"

Maka hesitates, gripping the edges of her dress. "I-I'm looking at you right now. I've always looked at you, Soul," she forces out, ignoring the Imp that mutters about her lies in the background. "You're just…never looking when I am."

Confusion knits his brows at her odd statement but he ignores it. He needs a drink, he just needs to think about everything said today and come up with a reasonable conclusion. Saying things in anger have never got him anywhere, he should know. "Look, this isn't working out. I haven't had a decent conversation with you in…probably a whole damn month. Our resonation is bad and if we continue like this, Lord Death's gonna' assign us new partners. So maybe we should just – take a break, y'know? Maybe if we're away from each other for a bit—!"

"NO!" Maka shouts. She stares at him with such hurt that he wants to take back his words. "No, I'll fix this! I promise I will, I just can't right now!"

"Would you quit leading the poor boy on?" The Imp cunningly interjects. "If you're going to continue being so unfair, you might as well separate! It'll be best for both of you if you do!"

"N-no, NO!" Maka shouts and braces her head between her arms to keep herself calm; because Soul looks so tired and somber and like he'll actually _leave her_ and that's a terrifying thought. "It wasn't supposed to end this way, it was supposed to _help _me! I was just – I thought it would help if I wasn't near you as much as usual!"

Soul finds himself walking towards her despite his turmoil. He can't stand to see her so agitated, even if he's more than a little heartbroken at this point. He'll always find himself coming back to her, no matter how badly she treats him, he thinks bitterly. Because his devotion is bone-deep and he's stupid. "What was supposed to help you?"

"Are you kidding me?" The Imp cries. "She's obviously playing you! You can't honestly expect that be _real_—!"

"_Shut up!"_ Soul demands and the Imp disappears. The room holds only the two of them now and it feels warmer than it had previously. He turns back to Maka, watching her bite on her nails like she did when she was anxious. "Maka?"

"It's _me_!" Maka blurts, looking guilty. Soul raises a brow; she's doing that weird thing where she finishes sentences in her head but only says bits and pieces to the world. Essentially, making absolutely no sense. "It's my fault, I'm…not okay."

"What's wrong? You sick or something?" He asks, concernedly.

"_No, _it's just…" Maka struggles. He reaches out for her shoulder and falters when she tenses. He keeps his hands to himself instead. But Maka tentatively reaches out for him, for his chest, to his scar like before. His body radiates heat against hers, drawn so close that she can feel the fabric of his blazer against her wrist. She presses a hand to his chest, pressing her finger tips into the muscle beneath his dress shirt. Her hand wants to have its way with him, wants her fingers to reach for his buttons and pluck them off one by one.

Her breath comes harder as she remembers this imaginary room. The dress feels too tight on her and she wonders if she can wish it away, all away, along with his shirt and his blazer. Except his tie – the tie her fingers tentatively grip now– she can use his tie to command him. But the naughty thoughts that run amok her mind cease when her self-control returns and she lets go of his tie and instead looks up into his eyes. But that's worse, staring into those bloody red eyes of his. They tighten the knot of desire inside of her; igniting her libido like a match.

"Maka?" He says, breath baited. It's almost too warm inside the Black Room. The way she's staring at him makes things – dirty thoughts, thoughts she'd have smacked him for if she knew – cross his mind. He doesn't know what's going on through her mind right now but he does know that this dress his mind automatically dresses her in must go. It's not short enough, not sheer enough, not tight enough. The dim lights that hang above slant across her svelte body like a caress, revealing angles of her that he's never seen before. The elegant curve her neck that leads down to her perky breasts, further down the slope of her smooth abdomen to the curve of her bottom. He can almost imagine her legs – long, firm, smooth, pretty feet slipped into high heels.

"Whatever he said," Maka begins, and her hand reaches out to grab his cheek impulsively. He holds his breath; his skin feels like its been lit aflame by her touch. "It's not true. It's not true, okay, Soul? I just have to deal with this alone."

"Let me help you," he rasps and her eyes threaten to fall. But she keeps them open, keeps them fixed on him; always on him, like she promised they were. His loins ache for her, his blood feels hot under his skin.

"You can't, not with this…" Maka shakes her head sadly, finally dropping her hand. It falls on his shoulder and he can feel her pants on his collarbone when she steps closer. "I have to deal with this alone but I promise we'll be able to resonate soon. I just need some time."

"What do you have to deal with that I can't know?" Soul braves, adding before she can seal this conversation like the rest: "We've always told each other everything, what's so different now?"

Maka doesn't reply, not for a long time. His hands have revolted against his mind and they grab her elbows; one runs up to her slim shoulder. He can feel her skin through the lace and it sends pleasant shivers down his body when she arches a little, her head lifting so her breath fans his neck.

"This can change things… a lot," she finally says, carefully.

"Maka, if you haven't noticed, whatever _problem_ you're dealing with right now has _already_ changed things... for the worse," Soul dryly reminds and she digs her fingers into his chest in warning. "How can it change things anymore than it already has?" He humors her instead, not wanting to get on her bad side when he's so close to discovering why she's been so distant and strange recently.

"Our...friendship. "

"Our friendship?" Soul frowns. He leans back to look at her properly but she doesn't dare raise her eyes. He leans sideways and the lights slices across her face, her red cheeks and downcast eyes. "What're you trying to say? Maka, just say it! It can't be that bad!"

"I want things!" Maka snaps, irately.

"I want things, too, but you don't see me being all emo about it!"

"No, Soul, I want things... I want _things to happen to me_!" When he doesn't comprehend, Maka's flush deepens and she hisses, as if a secret, which it surely is, "_To my body."_

"….You want things to happen…to your body?"

"_Yes_."

"Maka, are you _cutting?"_ Soul says, alarmed.

"NO!" Maka groans, burying her face in his chest. This is excruciating; wasn't he supposed to be the pervert between them? Then again, perhaps he was ignoring those thoughts because of the way she normally is. She isn't needy, she isn't coy – she's Maka Albarn, she's straight-laced, she's tough-as-nails, she doesn't adhere to the normal phases most girls go through. However, this is a phase that's long overdue and she can't ignore it. She hasn't been able to ignore it since she walked into Soul lying on the couch with one leg bent and the other hanging; his hand so near his belt-buckle, a sexy mess of lazy and careless. "No, don't be stupid, I'm not depressed! I'm…I'm…"

"You're _what?"_ Soul growls, annoyed. He looks around and finds no annoying Imp. He really must've sent him someplace far away in his subconscious if he hasn't made an appearance yet. Soul somewhat hopes he stays wherever he is for a little longer. "Just spit it out, it's not like anyone else can hear you—!"

"I'm horny."

Silence reigns and Soul suddenly thinks that it was a _very_ bad idea to put his hands on Maka – even if they were just on her elbows...and her neck, too.

"Wait, so…" Soul begins, awkwardly. "You avoiding me, not looking at me, all of that, it's because…?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Maka sucks in an embarrassed breath, trying to collect the broken pieces of her dignity off this marble floor. She hasn't told anyone of the sudden spike in her hormones, not even the girls. They would only make things worse, to be honest.

It had all started that day she watched porn when she was fifteen – not intentionally, accidentally, as these things always tend to happen. She had woken up late at night and, unable to sleep, she had wandered into the living room. She turned the volume down low and browsed the movie channels until she came across something strange. She thought it was a paranormal romance but then they started to take off their clothes and, instead of those fleeting sex scenes horror movies are infamous for, this one went on and on and _on_ and then another woman walked in and then the _women got it on, too, __together_ and Maka simply couldn't find it in her to change the channel; entranced by the acts, the scenes, the sounds, that made her feel all funny and hot and bothered.

Then she discovered masturbation.

And it had all been perfectly _fine_ until the day she realized using her fingers wasn't cutting it for her anymore. Things became further convoluted when Soul started to blend in with her fantasies. And then ghost touches and imagined groans no longer set fire to her loins like they had before. That day was the day they all – her friends, some of the teachers – packed their bags for vacation and traveled to Miami and she discovered Soul looked practically edible in swim shorts and nothing else.

But she can't – she _can't_ just project her desires onto him like that. But being near him, aware of every single action he made, every breathe he took, how he ran his fingers through his hair when he was sleepy or how when he yawned, his arms stretched up and his shirt rode up to reveal enough skin to make her mouth water, it was becoming harder and harder to reign in her natural desires for a single boy, a boy who happened to live with her, a boy who she trusted more than she trusted herself, a boy with nice shoulders and hands and _voice_…

"Then we're never gonna' resonate."

Maka snaps her head up, alarmed.

"Maka, these things don't just _go away_," Soul informs with a sigh and Maka listens with dread. "They get worse, actually."

"They do?" She asks, helpless.

"Yeah. A lot worse, so if you don't take care of it now, it's gonna' interfere with our resonance. Unless you let me resonate with you _anyway_—!"

"NO!" Maka shouts, horrified. He can see things; glimpses, snapshots. Just as she can see snapshots of what is most pressing in his mind – music, the battle, her fighting, mindless things like that – he can see what is in hers and it's bad enough that even when she's fighting, sex is on her mind and it's annoying and embarrassing and distracting.

"It can't be that bad."

"Yes. Yes it _can_ be that bad," Maka cringes when he laughs. She hasn't heard him laugh in the longest time and it's his voice that brings her thoughts down south _again_. A deep, low, bass, trembling through her chest and sending tendrils of desire lashing out from their confines deep in her gut. She can almost imagine how rough it can get with enough encouragement—

Maka suddenly steps away from him and walks towards the curtains she materialized from. She closes her eyes and takes a few breaths to calm her pounding heart. She'll be able to decently resonate with Soul now that she's come clean with him. Perhaps that will be enough – at least until she deals with this problem, somehow, without ruining their partnership in the worst ways. "Stein is probably wondering if we're okay," Maka reveals. She rubs the silk of her dress between her fingers to keep herself occupied; distracted. "He was the one who told me you let the black blood take over…"

"Why'd you go away?" Soul drawls, ignoring her last remark, and she can almost hear a taunt in his words. "Is it really _that_ bad?"

"Didn't you hear me?" Maka frowns, looking over her shoulder. "Stein's waiting for us!"

"An hour here is a second out there!" Soul dismisses. He leans back on the table, hops up until he's sitting on it actually. He leans back on his palms, his foot knocking on the leg of the table to the beat of the track the phonograph is belting out. Her eyes do a quick run down his spread body, lingering on the spot below his belt, before they flash away but he catches the motion and a smirk eases onto his face. "I'm kinda' curious about what thoughts go through your head. Black Star and the others pretty much think you're dead inside when it comes to these things."

"I wish," Maka mutters, vindictively.

"So can I get a peek?" He taunts and she slits her eyes at him, knowing he's playing with her now.

"_No_," Maka turns to him, fixing him with a burning look that he admits does funny things to his dick. He thinks he's marginally sadistic because the thought of Maka, red-faced and spitting venom, winds him up better than a wind-up toy. "And if _any_ of this gets out, I'll know it was you and I'll throw away all of your records, you hear me?"

"You wouldn't do that—!"

"Yes, I _would_," Maka growls, very serious. This is embarrassing enough to confess to him, the object of her fantasies, now if anyone else found out, it'll be plain mortifying. "Now that you're back, I can finish my presentation. Or at least arrange another day for me to present…" Maka mutters as she turns her back to him, concentrated on each rub of silk between her fingers. It's until she hears his slow steps towards her that the silk no longer distracts her from the shivers of anticipation on her skin.

"Whatever happens in here," Soul begins innocently, placing a hand on her hip. "No one will ever know." The promise in his words is delicious enough for her to take with gleeful selfishness. But she doesn't take it because she sadly knows better.

"Soul!" Maka sharply addresses, throat tight. She wiggles in his grasp when she feels his lips trace the shell of her ear. She knows what he's doing and although a part of her, a dark and naughty part of her, relishes the feeling of his hands on her and his lips on her skin, another part, a reasonable part, insists that this will only complicate things for them. She _knows_ they will but she's vulnerable right now and he's playing all her weak spots like it's his job and it's starting to become hard to deny him. "Stop – this isn't right…"

"Why not?" He murmurs, pressing her back against his chest. His hands run down her body until they reach hers and he tangles their fingers together so she doesn't escape. He bends towards her and listens for each hitch of breath, watches every swallow of her throat, whenever he kisses her exposed neck; dares to lick up to her earlobe, feels the way her body tenses against his and her breathes shudder and her eyes slowly close with the sensations.

"It's easy," Soul tempts, and smirks when she shakes her head and steps out of his embrace. "Really, you're just going to walk away?"

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm not going to –!" She flails her arms around and he arches a brow, holding back a snort when a great red flush adorns her cheeks at her own incoherency. "I'm fine on my own! I can fix it!"

"Maka, you aren't broken, you can't just fix it."

"Yes, I can! Watch me!"

Soul merely chuckles, shaking his head at her. "Maka, I've held back these sorts of feelings for longer than you have. Trust, it doesn't get easier. It gets worse." He draws closer again, pulling her to his chest as she gasps and tries to run away. Before she can cleverly avoid him, his fingers graze the swell of her breast.

"Soul," Maka swallows, nervously. She squirms and his arm snakes around her waist to keep her still. "A..are you sure?"

"As serious as a heart-attack," he drawls, and gropes her breasts before she can reply. She drops her eyes down to his hands in alarm, breathing hard, entranced by the way his thumbs brush over the pert nipples that show so clearly through the sheer black silk of her dress. His hands cup her breasts; squeeze them; rub them in ways that make her wet enough it's uncomfortable. "I don't want another meister, Maka," he says, and one hand falls down the sleek curve of her waist down to her hips and disappears from her sight. "We have to take care of this before it gets worse," and now that hand grabs a good portion of her ass and the feeling is almost obscenely _good._

Don't blame her; she tried so hard for so many months. So many months spent lying on her bed with the sheets tossed off, spread out as if nailed there, staring at her ceiling, her mouth parted and skin feverish, her legs opened as if the breeze that drafted through her window could cool the heat that burned between them.

Now she kissing him, mouth hard and soft as it slants against his demandingly, and she can't control her hands any longer because the contact has fizzled her self-control. She turns with a desperateness in her steps, her hands grabbing his shoulder and pulling him down to her height. They curl around his neck and her mouth moves against his furiously and with a muffled _ngh _he's dragging her away from the curtain and towards one of the armchairs. Her thigh bumps against the armrest and she lifts a leg, swinging it over and finding footing against the other side of the chair. She heaves herself up, ignoring his alarmed muffle of her name, and finally rests on her knees on the armrest. Her hands grip his shoulders and she adjusts herself until she's looming over him, half-lidded eyes staring into his own. Her mouth meets with his again and the kiss is deeper this time, easier, because she dominates now and reluctance and fear aren't in her vocabulary anymore.

His hands find her back, run down her sides longingly. She moans into his mouth when one hand runs down the slope of her rear until it reaches the hanging edges of her black dress. He tugs the material back, revealing her creamy legs, the thighs that are clamped tightly as if that will help with the ache that's developing between them.

"…I didn't put you in this…" Soul muffles around her mouth when he feels the lacey, sheer, material of her underwear. It's naughtier than the usual number, which is usually printed with teddy bears or strawberries and covers everything needed. No, this is grown-up underwear; sheer, made of lace, easy to take off, cupping her ass in a way that makes his cock throb urgently.

"I came in them," Maka pants in his mouth, silencing anything he might say with another searing kiss. He pulls the dress as if he wants to tear it off her but before she can help him, he positions both hands on her rear and spreads her legs until her knees are shoulder-lengths apart. Her back arches, a whine ripping her throat when she feels his fingers wander to where all her aches reside, dancing along the sides before they finally find her slick entrance.

"Really wet," he mumbles against her breasts, his tongue flicking out to lick the nub of her right breast. She wants to take off her dress, wants to feel his tongue on her bare breasts already, not through this sheer material that only serves to tease. "Lift your leg."

"Just take them off,"

"Then lift your leg, genius."

"Just _tear _them off, you're a scythe, aren't you?" Maka barks and bites his neck when he tries to retort. He decides a horny Maka is an impatient Maka and obliges: tearing her underwear right off without trouble. Out of curiosity, he lifts the sheer tiny thing and stares at it for a second before Maka's mouth is on his again.

"When'd you buy these?" He muffles, tossing the thing somewhere in the room.

"Store."

"_When?"_

"I don't know," Maka sighs, irritably. "You talk to much, just—!"

"What?" He muffles around her mouth again and she bites his lip vengefully.

"_Just touch me,_" she moans breathlessly, threading her fingers through his hair. He obliges, too, because he should've known better than to think, when he initiated this contact, she would be able to carry on a conversation. He can't remember any sign that she wanted him, that she wanted him to do this to her, except maybe it explains why she doesn't hold his hand anymore and she avoided him in the living room. Maybe it explains why sometimes he'd think she was watching him but when he'd look, she was reading again or she was looking the other way. Maybe it explains why she pushed him away – because Maka thinks too much, worries too much, and doesn't indulge enough, like she _needs_ to.

Soul grabs her thighs and pushes her against him, guiding her legs around his waist. Maka eagerly complies and Soul stumbles back a step, rounding the armchair and letting himself fall back on it. Maka kneels over him, straddles him, pushing her tongue down his throat hard enough that it's hard to breathe and his heart is on the verge of exploding and she's hot all over – she's like fire, his hands tremble to touch her, he wants _more_ and she has no problem letting him take as much as he wants–

"Of course I walk into _this_, of all things!"

Maka chokes, her eyes springing open and the haze clearing. Then horror sets in and she jerks back, appalled by her actions, and he would tell her it's perfectly fine to lose control like this – any time, actually, he _really _doesn't mind – but she's hurriedly pulling her dress down her legs and scrambling off him as if he were aflame.

"What the hell are you doing here? I thought I kicked you out!" Soul barks, somehow unable to sit straight in the chair. He's still dazed and the Imp sees this with dry clarity. If the Imp wanted to instill doubts, he's lost his chance now. That idiot, his counterpart, would be too drunk off this girl to properly overthink his implications. She was good, the Imp thinks as he turns to her, good without even knowing...which he thinks is _worse._

"I was just here to deliver a little warning," the Imp says, sickly-sweet. "Stein is getting antsy. You both have been gone for a total of an hour and a half."

"An hour and a…but I thought an hour here was like a fraction of a second in reality?" Maka says fretfully and the Imp snorts.

"Time isn't _that _distorted!"

"Then…" Maka flushes red and doesn't look at Soul. Instead, she runs to the curtain with shouts of meeting him outside thrown over her shoulder. Soul watches her leave blankly before the Imp brings him back from his daze:

"If she avoided you before, she's going to disappear now."

"No, because I _know_ what she wants now," he smirks.

"Your package, I'm sure," the Imp drones, unamused. It conjures up another glass of wine, watching Soul lift himself off the chair and fix his askew clothing. The tent in his pants is painfully clear, the Imp takes dark amusement in the fact that _out there _it's just as noticeable.

When Soul wakes up, he's pinned against the tree by his own scythe and Maka is hovering over him with worried green eyes. He's confused – why is he in the forest of all places? – and then her eyes drop down to his pants in curiosity and his do, too, and then he curses everything in life. Because he has a huge boner and there's no way Stein isn't going to notice that when he stands up. In fact, this is probably the biggest boner he's had to date and he has absolutely no idea how he's going to think this one way. He doesn't think it's possible; it's _actually_ starting to hurt him, the longer it stands there...

"…_I'm sorry_…" Maka whispers so quietly he almost doesn't hear her.

"If we pretend it's not there, Stein will, too," Soul mutters forcefully and it somewhat works although throughout the walk back (with Soul jamming his hands so deeply in his pockets he pulls his jacket low enough to hide his erection) he's keenly aware of Stein's none-too-subtle smirk because, being a genius professor, how could he _not_ know what just went on in his head with Maka? All he can hope is he won't be an ass and let something slip to the pervy Deathscythe any time soon.

* * *

><p>Maka is in her room.<p>

He doesn't know what she does in there anymore, he always assumed she was studying or something equally geeky, but now _different_ thoughts take over: what if she's relieving that _extra tension_ all by herself? What if she _doesn't_ study at all but just lies there, dozing, perhaps skimming through a favorite novel of hers, or just being gloomy again and staring at the wall, because she seemingly can't be in the same room with him without thinking dirty things. He thinks back to the Book of Eibon and how quickly they both reverted to their usual gender and then remembers that she had strayed from the group just as he had; she had wandered off to a different section of the book and the spell had quickly dissolved because of it, because of the situation the damn book brought up. He knows that when _he_ realized it, everything from the Lust chapter went down the toilet.

Perhaps Maka wasn't as chaste as everyone makes her out to be, perhaps she would have rivaled Liz and Tsubaki and the thought arouses Soul the longer and deeper he thinks about it. His eyes flash to her bedroom door, closed, unlocked, practically begging to be open. It wouldn't be hard to stand up and walk over to her bedroom...

He doesn't do it, though. He sits there, half-way hard, just thinking, staring absently at the television screen. He's glad Blair isn't here today – the cat-woman can smell arousal miles away and she has always teased him about his morning wood. That's why he kicked her out of his room and to Maka's when he turned fifteen—because when he was fifteen it was a _constant_, early morning, thing and, so early in the morning, he doesn't want to deal with things like that; especially not a constantly horny cat-woman whose too touchy for her own good.

He's halfway asleep, eyes lidded and drowsy, when the door to Maka's bedroom creaks open. He keeps it cool and doesn't completely sit upright when she appears, apprehensive and shy. She's like a frightened animal: he stays perfectly still, doesn't do much but glance at her and look back to the TV screen, and when she quietly takes a seat a foot away from him on the couch, it's a solid victory on his side. At least she's confident enough to come out for some evening television—_without_ a book or something to hide behind of. That's an improvement from the past few weeks.

"What are you watching?" Maka asks with an air of uncertainty. It's been a while since they both sat together in the same room to watch television. She misses the familiarity.

"Beats me," he grins lazily. "I think it's a crime drama."

"You watch dramas now?"

"_Crime _drama."

"It's still a drama," Maka mutters, getting comfortable on the couch. She slouches back, watching the program with a lofty scrutiny that makes him smile because they fall back to the cycle of things so easily. They watch the program for a good long while, watching the proceeding episode, too, although the storyline is the last thing on their minds. He's more aware of her tendencies now and, as he watches her from his peripheral, he notices that she glances at him a lot. Was this what he missed while brooding about their apparently-fracturing partnership? Missing obvious signs like this, maybe that's why Tsubaki and Black Star didn't seem too concerned about their resonating problems like Kid and Liz had been. Kid and his weapons hardly hung out with them, not like Tsubaki and Black Star, they wouldn't notice these signs; they'd mistake them for worry, trepidation, not attraction, like Maka is _clearly_ expressing. He kind of feels like an ass for ignoring these signs. It couldn't be more obvious, the reason for her avoidance of him, now that he knows.

When she looks at him again, he meets her eyes and holds her there. She flashes her eyes away hastily, heat warming her face, but when she glances back he's still looking at her and there's nothing in his expression that's unwelcoming. In fact, he seems to lean towards her although he keeps his distance as he watches her with that cool gaze he's known for.

She's only a foot away but to her it seems a vast distance. She drops her eyes to the space between them, wondering if it would have been different if she hadn't been so obstinate in avoiding any sort of contact with her partner. She looks back up to him as if he called her name and there's a certain look in his eye that beckons her to draw closer. It's a mutual agreement; the first time in a long time they communicated through sheer expressions and she finds she misses it more than anything.

She crawls over to him, kneels by him, wraps her arms around his neck and whispers _sorry _because she heard more than half of that conversation with that Imp and she was horrified to realize that is exactly what it must have looked like. And she understands the feelings of being unwanted, of being in constant anxiety because the idea of being alone is more terrifying than anything else she's ever known, so when she presses her lips against his this time, it's not a lustful kiss but one of comfort and apology.

"You're an idiot," Soul murmurs against her lips affectionately, a lopsided grin threatening to grow on his face when she scrunches her nose in annoyance. "You know Liz gave me shit about it this entire time?"

"How does that involve me? She's always hounding you about something," Maka replies, leaning against his chest as his arms wrap around her waist and bring her to his lap. She grunts when Soul slumps down a little further, placing his feet on the coffee table; crossed at the ankle. She's about to rest her chin on his head when she feels his nose nuzzle her breasts, his mouth open against her rapidly hardening bud. "Soul," Maka warns, trying to sink a little lower so he couldn't seduce her so dirtily. "Did you study for Stein's test?"

"We don't have a test."

"Yes we do."

"Nope, he's not even gonna' be here tomorrow."

"He'll leave it with the sub, stupid," Maka scowls and winces when his teeth bite the swell of her breast instead. Maka leans down and looks him in the eye, as sternly as she can when he looks like a child deprived of his toy. "Stop it," she demands and he grins impishly, burying his face in her neck and drawling about her being such a _prude_ when she wasn't confined to the room in his head.

"Jerk."

"Sure."

"It's not a compliment..."

"I take it as one."

Maka growls, he grins.

There's always been tension with him. From the very beginning she has been neck-to-neck with him about a lot of things although that tension had been because of each others conflicting interests. This tension, sometimes sweet and tortuous in its execution, will be the worst type yet. Maka grips the back of the couch when Soul slants his mouth against hers, slipping his tongue between her parted lips without hesitation. Maka's other hand reaches up to grip his shoulder, slowly crushing her mouth against his as the kiss bolsters their confidence. It's different, a little more _real_, a little more heady, in this reality than the one in his soul. She likes this one better.

Soul thinks, by the end of the night, he's going to, one way or another, cream his pants because whether Maka continues her decidedly devilish ministrations or not, he can't keep having all the blood rush down south without any sort of relief. He can be considered masochistic but not to the extent of suffering through blue balls every single time he's with Maka.

And that's when Maka's kisses become feverish, like a switch has been turned on. Soul barely has time to suck in a breath before her mouth is back on his; dominating, pressing and crushing and urging. Her fingers thread through his hair, her free hand runs down his chest as if deciding what part of him she'll start with first. Her thighs tremble, they clamp around his hips, bringing his prominent erection level with her sex until he can feel her heat through the material of his sweats. His hand rests on the small of her back, guiding her hips to gyrate against his as their mouths continue their furious movements. He bites back a hiss when she gives him some time to breathe but bites his neck, licking the tender spot and bringing her swollen lips to his jaw.

"Been hanging out with the sisters too long," he grumbles, reaching up to grab her cheek and still her enough to crush his mouth against hers again. "You should know the drill by now then," he grins, darkly, and pulls down her sleeping shorts until only her white panties show. This he's more familiar with, not that lace thing she wore in the Black Room. The shorts hang off her ankle for a while, completely forgotten, as Soul teases her perked nipples with his fingers. Maka groans, arching to his sure hands, and feels like she's going to come if this continues; such an intense pleasure, numbing her fingers and clouding her thoughts.

"_A-ah!_" she squeals when his hips jerk upwards involuntarily. The sound is so foreign, so unlike the quiet bookworm he's grown to love, that he derives a sort of pleasure from it and repeats his action just to hear her utter that syllable again and again and again. His hand is back to massaging her breast, impatiently reaching under her tank top to caress the twin mounds properly.

"No bra," he scoffs and she purses her lips.

"I was going to sleep."

"Uh huh," he smirks, reaching down to grope the firm swells of her ass next. Her underwear needs to go, too, but he reluctantly refrains from tearing it off. Tearing panties off in his head is way different than doing it in reality, where Maka will throw a fit because she'd have to buy new ones. So he settles for reaching under the thin panties and caressing her slick folds, slipping inside of her teasingly.

"_Soul!_" she squeaks and her hand slips between them in vengeance. It bumps abruptly with his straining cock, kept in its confines for longer than it should have. She struggles with the band of his sweats until she's tugging them far down his ass and he's kicking them off the best he can. His boxers are black and Maka wants to take them off accordingly but instead she grinds into him, her mouth slacking as pleasure weaves its way through her thoughts and consumes them in its haze.

"Move – yeah, like _that_," Soul groans, grabbing her hips and grinding her harder on his throbbing shaft. She suddenly grips his shoulder, her nails digging into his skin painfully, but he doesn't mind it because he knows she's coming close. He can see it in the way she bites her lip, her breathing erratic and heavy, her hips starting to rock against his cock in just the right way; quick, short, hard. "Damn it, Maka," he hisses out, helping her reach her end by grabbing her hips and quickening the pace.

"_Hah, hah, hah,_" she pants, half-way delirious as the heat that's gathered in her stomach feels like it's about to burst. She tosses her head back, thighs trembling with the effort to maintain the pace Soul has mercilessly set up for her, but then release is just _there_ – she can feel it, so close, so achingly close that she doesn't think she can stop even if someone walked in on them. It's that point of no return, as she opens her eyes and they lock with Soul's and such an intimate moment passes between them that when orgasm finally hits her and her mouth opens in a sob of his name and all that is holy, her fingers will never be able to match up to this release ever again.

"You haven't…?" Maka pants as she leans against him, coming down from her high. Soul shakes his head, pressing his nose against her neck. His hand reaches behind her to touch her slick entrance again and he's amazed by just how wet she really is. She's practically soaked through her underwear at this point and the thought of just how easy it would be to slip inside her, to feel her around him, tight, wet, hot, only makes his stalling orgasm a goal to reach for very soon. "Let me help," Maka offers, wincing when the fabric of his boxers slides against her sensitive clit as she readjusts herself.

She never knew it would be this hot, this heavy in her palm, as she takes him in her hand. Soul practically groans her name out as her hand experiments with his shaft, her fingers running over the head and coming away sticky and wet, something that runs down his shaft and makes it easier for her to pump his cock like he wants. She's uncertain, though, she's never done this before, so it's no surprise that Soul realizes her inexperience quickly and decides to teach her a thing or two about his dick.

"It's not made out of glass!" Soul growls, grabbing her hand and tightening it around him. She's surprised by the amount of aggression in his tone and replies in kind, jerking him off roughly and watching him tip his head back and groan out her name long and loud. As her hand, sticky with his precum, slides up and down his shaft with more confidence, she can't help but notice his strong chest, his neck, the Adam's apple that bobs as he swallows back pathetic whimpers. "Makaaaaa, I'm close," he groans, thrusting into her hand with more vigor.

"Faster?" She doesn't think she can go much faster in this position.

"Yeah," and he wraps his hand around the hand that's wrapped around his shaft and guides her again, pumping their hands up and down that the movement is rhythmic and it's starting to bring back that ache between her thighs, the longer she watches his swollen cock disappear and reappear from their joint hands. And when he comes, it's the most intense one yet, and sight goes black for a time that feels like forever, but when color and image abruptly wash back into focus, he's breathing hard and watching Maka's face blush red because he happened to come all over her stomach and hand and he swears some of it got on her neck. Somehow. Because jizz has a weird tendency to get on things that aren't even supposed to be in range, much less trajectory.

"…My bad, I probably should've told you it does that," he shoots her a sharp grin and she glares, rubbing away his essence with her hand and hoping none of it got on the couch. Because Blair in cat mode can smell these things and the last thing she needs is the stupid feline complaining about the couch being uninhabitable because it reeks of sex or something of the sort when their friends are over.

"I'm not cleaning this up if it got anywhere else! Jeez, you're so messy!" Maka exclaims in annoyance, wiping away more of the sticky goo from her body. Soul watches mildly satisfied, more amused than anything by her annoyance at a natural bodily reaction to being jerked off by his meister. He feels good, he feels _great _actually, more refreshed than he's felt in weeks, although right now what he wants to do the most is grab Maka around the waist, lay her down on the couch, press her to him and sleep it all away until tomorrow—_or_ later, when they can do round two. Here he's hoping she's about as horny as Tsubaki apparently is.

"You tired?"

"Not really, I feel hyper," Maka answers sheepishly, to his interest. Maybe she really is as horny as Tsubaki. If she is, he's hit jackpot. Or damned himself into the deepest level of hell.

"I wanna' sleep," Soul admits flatly.

"You _always_ want to sleep! I'm not surprised after this you _still_ want to sleep!" Maka sighs, rolling her eyes at her predictable partner.

"You know that normal people are _supposed_ to be sleepy after this?" Soul drawls, snaking his arms around her waist and drawing her closer to him. Maka obliges, sliding her arms around his neck and barely resisting when he kisses her chastely. "Something about a release of endorphins…"

"Endorphins," Maka teases, their foreheads touching. "Where did you learn that from?"

"Stein," Soul answers honestly. "He wouldn't shut up about it when you went to get that mission request in, remember? I should've gone with you. I'll never forget that stupid word…"

"You've never remembered anything else he ranted about! I'm surprised you even learned that word, I thought geeky words weren't cool!" Maka laughs.

"Yeah, they aren't, but he kept saying _sex_ and endorphins so it's not my fault I remembered it!" Soul pulls away laughing when Maka gasps and smacks him for his perverse ways.

"Does that mean if I included the word sex in every math equation, you'd _actually_ learn something?" Maka asks, mockingly, and Soul smirks.

"Maybe, why don't you try?"

"Ugh," Maka bumps her forehead against his chin. "Forget it. I'm not going to do that. That's just plain stupid."

"But it might actually work," Soul casually says. "Or you can use that reward method."

"Reward method? Aren't you full of big words today," Maka rolls her eyes when Soul scowls. "Did Stein teach you that, too?"

"…_No_."

"Hm," Maka hums, not entirely convinced. "Reward method. What would I give you every time you did something good?" The answer seems obvious as Soul grins lazily and his eyes darken shades with lust. His hands reach up to entangle his fingers in her loose hair.

"I could think of a few things," he purrs, tugging her hair back suggestively. Maka shakes her head out, giggling when he drops his hand from her hair to wrap around her shoulder instead. "Are we going with it?"

"Nope," Maka smiles, laughing when he grunts in displeasure. "We'll give it a test run, though! We'll start today!" Maka positively says, pulling back enough to capture his attention with her expressive, bright, glimmering, emerald eyes of hers that never fail to lure him in. "Go wash the dishes, dry them, and put them back where they belong!"

"What?" Soul complains. "I did them yesterday!"

"Go do them _today_ and maybe you'll get something in _return_," Maka cheerfully says and, deciding he'll get something either way, obliges and pushes her off grudgingly to do the dishes before he doesn't want to anymore and Maka yells at him again. He grabs his sweats off the floor and tosses them over his shoulder, aware of Maka's eyes on him the entire time. "I'm going to my room! I have some homework I didn't do!"

Soul looks over his shoulder to watch her go; practically skipping back to her room with her shorts in hand. He smiles because this is how it was supposed to be – not that miserable air from before, where they both didn't know how to cope, how to handle, how to _interact_ with each other. He grimaces at the thought of being kept distant from her because he never noticed her distress, her longings. He needs to pay more attention to her, just enough to ensure she's okay and not being weird.

"Soul?" Maka calls from her room, suddenly.

"What?"

"Tomorrow we have to do extra training with Sid in the gym!" Maka sounds begrudging as she says this, perhaps guilty, but Soul forgave her when she trusted him enough to tell him of her problem. There was a time when, even knowing the damaging effects keeping things like this provoked, she would not say a word and he wouldn't, either. They'd keep it to themselves until someone intervened, until someone knocked sense into them, to think they'd grown enough to do it themselves, Soul scoffs as he grabs the bottle of dish soap.

So for once he doesn't mind doing the dishes twice in a row.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **THIS IS MAESNAPDRAGON'S REQUEST FIC FOR BEING AWESOME AND GUESSING THE SERIES I USED AS INSPIRATION IN ANOTHER STORY OF MINE! I really do hope she likes this story because there was more angst/smut than tension/smut lol I'll probably try my hand at this again sometime in the future and add more tension.

Mae _loves_ tension hehe.

_Scarlett._


End file.
